Much is not good at defending around the rim, but he showed signs of life offensively. Derosier looked a bit out of sync. Liked Morales's aggressiveness on both ends. Stephens drifting a lot. Cannady very sharp offensively. Gladson too hesitant for my taste on offense, but some good things. Aririguzoh still fouling too much and not being able to stay on the floor, but adding a lot of presence near the rim when he is in there.

Noah Savage is swearing up and down that Drew Freiberg is a deadly shooter, but watching the freshman miss from everywhere is not encouraging. A couple of those looked good, but a bunch were off line or way short.

So far Cannady has blown an open layup and Stephens missed an open dunk and an open layup. Freiberg misses another three. There is very little player movement and the ball is staying on one side of the floor during this drought. Meanwhile the interior defense has given up two baskets in a row.

Tigers putting on a clinic on making sure a game slips away. Missing the front ends of two one-and-ones, fouling a 90% foul shooter, and not looking very sure of their offensive plan on second-half possessions.

Went from up 56-53 at 9:40 to down 71-60 with 1:40 left. During that 8 minute stretch, there was a missed dunk and missed easy layup by Stephens, an offensive foul by Aririguzoh, and two missed front-end of 1 and 1s. It was like everything that could go wrong during that 8 minute stretch did.

Our lack of depth is proving to be a big problem. Putting a huge burden on freshmen seldom pays off. It's not Friberg's fault (again, just a frosh), but playing a guy 25 minutes and having him go 0-7 is hard to overcome. I expected more from Much and Desrosiers...what's up with them? They showed such promise last year.

When you miss shots, you give up easy buckets in transition. And it gets wearying mentally and physically to work hard on defense over and over and then brick a wide-open 3 on the other end. Eventually, the opposition will go on a run like FDU did in the 2nd half.

When Cannady and Stephens perform well and the team still loses to an athletic but not overly skilled FDU team, there are issues--- performance of Much, Gladson, Schweiger, DesRosiers, Frieberg etc.

The one remaining hope is that Llewellyn gets healthy and brings a lot to the table, i.e. penetration/easy baskets. May well be a long shot/doubtful but he might be instant offense. If Jaelin cannot do it, Mitch may simply try to turn it all over to Myles and Devin on offense.

There is always IvyMadness that I say in jest. Where is that 2 bid IL NCAA tournament teams by the way?

Stephens was good against FDU because he can create scoring opportunities, but he can play a lot better than that. There were many possessions on both ends where he didn't have much impact on the proceedings, standing around. Some of that was part of an overall team drift at crucial moments, but he could help in those situations by stirring himself to set a screen or make a hard cut.

When the 3 is not dropping, it would be nice to see them go hard to the hoop and initiate contact--either get a score and one, or two shots at the line. Nothing fixes a cold hand like some made free throws.

Stephens' interior game is predicated on spin moves and fadeaway jump shots that don't generally draw contact. I thought he did all he could late in the game to carry the load, but all we got was a 2 points or a miss, followed by a nothing but net 3 ball at the other end of the court.

Regarding the earlier comment on Morales' shoulder, he looked to be in tremendous pain. We have no report of the injury, but at his age I suspect he had a dislocation earlier. Shoulder injuries can be quite slow to heal. He may be out for a while now.

What we are seeing in Stephens' game is similar to the way he played last year, and it is a function of the lack of reliable offensive options around him. Other than Cannady, no one else consistently puts pressure on the defense. In his breakout season the game came to him and he was able to take maximum advantage, leading the Tigers in scoring in Ivy play on a team that featured the Ivy POY and runner-up. Almost all of his scoring now is the product of going one-on-one, the antithesis of an offense based on ball and player movement. Our defensive futility brings to mind a famous observation made by John McKay, Tampa Bay Bucs coach, during the Bucs' inaugural 0-16 season. He was asked about the execution of his team's defense. McKay replied, "I'm in favor of it."